<p>The Urge To Plant A Devastating Kiss Across Her Perfect Lips Made His Body Twitch In Anticipation.</p>

Cinco Gentry closed his cell phone, listening as the snap echoed off the Texas hills. He wondered if he’d just agreed to do the right thing—or if one more catastrophe was about to get the better of him.

At this ungodly hour of the morning, his longtime friend and business partner, Kyle Sullivan, had called from nearby San Angelo to say he needed a favor. A new client needed Cinco’s protection on the ranch. This client was Kyle’s old Air Force buddy named Frosty, and the guy had apparently found himself in a world of trouble.

Well, that’s what Cinco rather smugly thought he was the best at doing, after all. Security and protection. Surely a new project for his Internet security firm would work out better than the rest of his life had recently.

Because of the frustrating conversations he’d had last night with his brother and sister, Cinco had found himself, once again, standing at the foot of his parents’ empty graves just as the dawn peeked over the trees. He cursed all four generations of Gentrys that had come before him. Stabbing at a wayward weed with the toe of his boot, he especially damned the two headstones that had always failed to provide him with any answers.

Dang, what he’d give to be able to ask his parents just a few more questions. Like what had really become of them on that storm-swept night so long ago, and what in the world he should do about his rebellious siblings now.

The granite markers for T. A. Gentry IV and his wife, Kay Hempstead Gentry, put there only as memorials, had silently mocked Cinco for these past twelve long years. Instead of answers, only the vague reverberations of ghostly voices joined the cell phone echoes bouncing off the distant hills, reminding him that he would never know the truth.

Spectacular countryside spread out below him. On one side of Graveyard Hill the waning full moon magnified the shadows of mesquite and cottonwood. The bright moonlight shone on the sparse patches of a late fall frost and tinted them a deep shade of blue. From the other direction the sun peeked over a distant hill and gave the frost on that side of the valley the appearance of fire—glowing a warm reddish-orange. The whole world around him blended into a rainbow of color. And Cinco barely noticed.

Since his parents’ disappearance he’d managed the ranch’s business affairs and watched over his kid brother and sister. But he’d give up the job as head of family in an instant if he could hand the whole thing back to the father who’d raised him. The father who taught him to believe that a man has a duty to become the best he could dream how to be. That same father whose apparent drowning had left Cinco no choice but to give up on his dreams and come home.

Now his top priority was keeping what was left of the family together. To keep Cal and Abby safe and sound. Although, both of them were stubborn as mules when it came to listening to his concerns about their safety. The two of them should just understand that this was his whole world now, dang it. Security was the one thing Cinco had become really good at over the years. He’d even managed to excel at the online security business with Kyle.

Now, if only he could also convince his younger brother and sister that he knew what would be safest for them, too.

An hour later, with the coffee brewing, the kitchen warmed and the dishes shoved into the sink, Cinco was beginning to wonder if maybe he should’ve given Kyle some driving directions. After all, his partner hadn’t been to the ranch in several years.

Cinco grabbed his coat and hat and pulled the keys to one of the trucks off a peg on his way out the mudroom door. There was only one way into the main house by road. If Kyle was lost, Cinco would find him easily enough.

Just as he stepped out onto the wide, wooden back-porch stairs, a cloud of noisy dust roared into the caliche-covered yard. Through the cloud, Cinco could make out the vague outline of an expensive British-racing-green-colored sedan. Long, low and sleek, the car seemed as foreign in this country as a cowpoke riding an elephant would’ve been.

Cinco knew the Gentry family’s ranching operation was as modern and up-to-date as any in the country, but he also knew what kind of impression any spread like this one made on city boys like Kyle. He wondered what this Frosty fellow would think of the place.

The sedan pulled to a stop on the other side of the yard as Cinco tried to get a glance at Kyle’s old buddy through the windshield. Tinted dark, none of the windows offered him any kind of hint about the man who needed his protection.

Cinco headed out across the yard, choking on the particles of West Texas dust kicked up by the car and lingering in the crisp autumn air. Kyle stepped from the driver’s door and said something to the other man. Cinco watched the passenger door open as the stranger turned, backing out of his seat before Cinco could get a good look.

The guy must’ve been trying to collect something from the front seat because his upper body was still bent over inside the car while his feet stood on the caliche outside the door. A khaki-covered backside was all Cinco could make out from this angle.

The remnants of the gray-colored cloud of dust slowly filtered back to earth and Cinco got a better look—at one of the shapeliest, sexiest behinds that he’d ever had the grand fortune to behold. What the heck? Who…?

Kyle came around the car, grinning like a damned idiot while the sexy bottom slowly straightened and transformed into a tall, fair-skinned woman who turned to face Cinco. Wearing black aviator glasses that covered most of the deadly serious expression on her face, the woman remained ramrod straight as she scanned the yard and buildings.

This was Frosty Powell? Hoo boy. Just wait until he got Kyle alone. No way was she staying on the ranch.

Kyle reached his side and slapped him on the back. “Great to see you, Gentry.”

Cinco stood his ground, gawking silently at the woman dressed in plain, khaki slacks and shirt, covered over by a tobacco-colored, leather flight jacket. Tall, at least five ten in flat-heeled shoes, her chin would probably hit him about shoulder level.

Whipping off the sunglasses, she took a quick glance around at the house behind him and then at the outbuildings and barns in the distance, finally letting her gaze settle on his body. She perused him from the tip of his old work hat to the soles of his scuffed lizard boots.

Immediately he felt compelled to try shining up his boots by rubbing them against the backs of his jean-clad calves. Resisting the urge, he stared back at her with his best scowl. After all, this was his place—not hers.

He noticed her chin come up ever so slightly and knew she’d felt his challenge and the tension.

He’d never seen anything quite like her. She looked like a Viking queen. Golden hair, pulled back in a thick braid, hung over her right shoulder feathering her breasts. Fiery blue eyes shot sparks of energy and, at the moment, appeared to be spitting mad. Her stance left little doubt she was more than capable of taking care of herself.

“Frosty, this is Cinco Gentry.” Kyle turned to introduce the two of them. “Cinco, this is my old buddy—”

“Frosty Powell?” Cinco cut in, with as much disbelief in his voice as he could manage without embarrassing himself.

“Well, yeah.”

The woman stepped closer and stuck out her hand. “Captain Meredith Powell, United States Air Force, retired. Pleased to finally meet you Mr. Cinco Gentry. Sorry about Kyle. We’ve just known each other too long. He sometimes forgets that I have a real name.” A semblance of a smile cracked the corners of her mouth but never reached her eyes.

Cinco managed to shake her hand but, apparently, he was struck dumb because he found his mouth sagging open. Her voice had been deep and musical, full of secret connotations. When she’d said his name, a purple haze of quick desire flashed through him, leaving him unsettled and frustrated.

He tried to pull himself together. The way she looked and the way she sounded were so incongruent that he felt pushed off balance. He didn’t like the feeling at all.

Her handshake was firm, polite while at the same time a little too strong. He seldom shook hands with women, and when he did, his impressions were usually of softness and silk. Rather wishy-washy and tentative. Nothing about Captain Meredith Powell’s handshake was hesitant—or wimpy.

In fact, nothing about her seemed familiar at all. Not like any woman he’d ever known. A fleeting image of the one true love of his life, Ellen, the woman he’d expected to love and protect forever but failed, spun through his mind. Dark, luscious hair and soft frilly clothes, that had been more Ellen’s style. The tall blonde before him wasn’t anything like that.

He coughed, trying to swallow any unwanted images. Felt in his throat every particle of the dust that had been dislodged by Kyle’s car. Then he coughed again.

Pulling his hand free, he tried to ignore her and turned to Kyle. “Let’s go inside for coffee.”

“I need to get Frosty’s bag from the trunk. Just a minute.” Kyle swiveled toward the car.

Cinco grabbed his elbow and squeezed. “Inside first…buddy. Then you and I need to have a little chat.”

When Meredith stepped inside the back door of the ranch house, she felt, more than ever, the eerie feeling of being Alice as she moved through the looking glass into Wonderland. The whole place, the entire atmosphere of the surrounding area, had started off feeling backward and weird.

During her career, she’d been stationed in several foreign countries and had even spent a few special deployments on third-world bases. But this? She could’ve sworn someone had accidentally dropped her into the middle of the movie set of an old Western.

With Cinco Gentry starring as the cowboy.

Kyle had failed to mention how authentically Western this part of Texas truly was. It absolutely reeked of raw-hide and leather. As did the man in charge.

Cinco, whatever kind of name that might be, had not been precisely what Meredith expected either. With his well-washed, tight-fitting jeans and black cowboy hat pulled low on his forehead, he looked exactly like she’d always pictured an old-fashioned Western movie star.

Then…his hand had gripped hers and she’d really gotten a look at his eyes. Warm chestnut brown at first glance, but the longer she’d stared into them, the darker and more intelligent and dangerous they’d become. He quickly ranked right up there as one of the most important reasons why she couldn’t stay out here in this wilderness.

“Let me take your coats.” Cinco tugged at the back of her flight jacket as she jammed her sunglasses into the pocket and shrugged her shoulders free.

He grabbed Kyle’s coat and hung both their jackets on pegs that jutted out from the rough, wood-paneled walls in the small hallway that was lined with boots along the floorboards. The shoes stood like little sentinels, guarding the entry.

“Go on into the kitchen. The coffee’s already made. Grab yourselves a mug.” Cinco slipped his hat off and put it on a rack, nodding toward the door opposite the one they’d just entered. Kyle led the way, leaving her to look around as she followed the enticing aroma of fresh brewed coffee.

The outside of this place had appeared oddly out of time. As she’d arrived, her view had been mostly obscured by tall trees and bushes, although she’d noticed the place rambled on over a wide area and impressed her as being sort of slapped together from differing styles.

She knew she’d spotted what looked like clapboard on one two-story wall but another adjoining room seemed to be made from a grayish-colored brick. All that confusion didn’t even begin to take into account the strange buildings she’d spied in the distance.

Stepping into the kitchen behind Kyle, she found herself in the same sort of out-of-time room. The cabinets were made in an old style from hand-sawn wood but done with precision and care. The appliances were stainless steel in an institutional-type style, brand-new and sparkling clean.

One wall was a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace, with a big enough hearth for a six-foot man to walk into. The blackened side walls and old-fashioned fire boxes looked ancient. On the other side of the room, a huge expanse of glass covered the wall from countertop to raised ceiling above the sink. Hanging plants and small pots of greenery surrounded the sink and partially blocked the view of trees and grass beyond the window. Glancing only at this part of the room, a person would swear it was a picture from a glossy magazine article in some modern home and style digest.

Meredith’s head began to swim with visions of the two differing eras, so without thinking, she dragged a huge wooden chair from under a polished cedar table. She sat down just as Kyle handed her a blue-and-white mug full of steaming black coffee.

“Cool ranch house, don’t you think?” Kyle stepped over to the slate counter and poured himself a cup from the glass carafe on the stove.

Looking up at him, she saw that the peaked ceiling had barely discernable modern track lighting tucked alongside the huge, roughly finished beams. The incongruity of the distant past existing right next to the gleaming future made her shake her head in wonder.

“It’s…interesting,” she mumbled. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But it doesn’t change anything. I still don’t need to be imprisoned out here, Kyle.”

“We’re not going through that again, Powell. The decision has been finalized, and that’s all there is to it.”

Cinco appeared inside the kitchen doorway. “All there is to what? What’s going on?” He was running his hands through hair that Meredith realized was the same warm-chestnut color as his eyes.

Cinco grabbed his own mug and filled it with the steaming coffee. “What’s the problem between you two?”

“No problem.” Kyle took a slug from the mug so he wouldn’t spill it, swallowing the hot liquid with an audible gulp. “Frosty’s got it in her head that she can simply go on with her life like nothing’s happened while a crazed murderer skulks around the country gunning for her. That’s all.”

Meredith wasn’t about to sit through this argument again. She jumped out of her chair and faced the two men.

“I am not planning on going ahead with life like nothing’s happened. My whole life was about to change anyway,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

She and Kyle had been over this so many times during the past couple of days that Meredith was exhausted from talking about it. She decided to try convincing the cowboy. He looked like a fairly intelligent man. Maybe he could make Kyle see reality.

“Look…Cinco. It’s like this,” she began. “When that insane jerk shot the general right in front of me on the steps of the Capitol, it also happened to be my very last day in the Air Force. I’d already resigned my commission and had accepted a position as a pilot with a commercial airline.

“Transcon Air has been kind enough to hold the pilot’s position open for me. Meanwhile, the feds bungled their arrest and lost the guy. And now the airline says they’ll keep the job free for only a little longer.”

She spread her hands wide, trying to appeal to Cinco’s best judgment, but immediately felt way too open and vulnerable and crossed her arms over her chest instead. “So tell me, how would crazy man Richard Rourke know where to find me if I went ahead with my plans and began the airline’s flight school?”

“Rourke may be crazy, but he’s not stupid,” Kyle said, as he stepped to Cinco’s side, facing her. “You know the FBI believes Rourke has contacts in several militia groups, and the militias have access to all kinds of supposedly confidential information. You’re not nearly devious enough to elude the militias if they want to locate you. Why, you’d probably use your own social security number for payroll purposes, wouldn’t you?”

She opened her mouth to protest, but first Kyle turned to plead his case with Cinco, the same way she’d tried to do.

“You know as much about security as I do, Gentry,” he declared. “Do you honestly think a woman who looks like this one could hide out in plain sight without being spotted?”

Cinco turned his narrowed gaze on her but kept silent.

Meredith felt a chill under his perusal and rubbed her arms in response. “Wait just a minute.” She spun on Kyle. “Who do you think you are to—”

She felt a strong hand on her shoulder, silencing her more efficiently than any words.

“You’re the witness that can identify Richard Rourke as the murderer of General VanDerring?” Cinco asked, while he gently turned her to face him. “The whole damn country’s looking for Rourke. You’re the only thing standing between him and freedom. No one else can place him at the scene.”

Cinco softened his gaze and pinned her with a piercing but concerned look. “He isn’t someone to fool around with. You must know that.”

“Fool around?” She tried to keep her voice low but heard the words cracking with her anger.

Kyle slid an arm over her shoulder and squeezed. “Easy, Frosty. This is a senseless argument anyway.” He dragged her to his side, taking her by surprise and silencing her once again as he explained to Cinco. “The U.S. Marshal’s Office wanted to place Frosty in protective custody while they search for Rourke. After she called me for help, I convinced them that I had a place and a man capable of providing the same security they could…but with fewer restrictions.”

Cinco nodded, as he apparently agreed that his ranch was as secure as anything the U.S. Marshals might come up with.

Meredith sighed, knowing her case was lost. She only had two choices—federal prison or ranch life with her friend’s partner. She realized she had to give up the fight, but she didn’t have to like it.

Cinco smiled at her for the first time, but the dimple creasing his left cheek didn’t do much to soften his eyes. “This here’s a real homey place, sugar,” he drawled. “You’ll be a lot happier and safer here.”

She straightened her shoulders and stood tall. “I’m sure.” But in her heart she knew the truth of her situation.

She probably would’ve been much better off locked up in some federal jail instead of being confined way out here with the original Lone Ranger as her guardian.